Where Life, Power, and Mystery Meet
First published Friday, January 8, 2016. Revised Monday, March 23, 2026.
The voice of the Lord is upon the waters.
— Psalm 29
This brief reflection was first written in January of 2016, in connection with the baptism of Christ.
What struck me then still strikes me now: throughout Scripture, water stands at the center of both nature and redemption.
Water gives life. Where it is present, things grow. It nourishes, cleanses, restores, and sustains. And yet water can also overwhelm, destroy, and terrify. The same element that makes life possible can also sweep it away.
That tension is not incidental.
It makes water a fitting symbol for the things of God.
We often ask how a loving God can permit what is overwhelming, painful, or frightening. But nature itself is already full of that paradox. The purest and most essential gifts are not always gentle. They are powerful. They exceed us. They remind us that what sustains life is never fully under our control.
So too with the Word of God.
It comforts, and it convicts.
It refreshes, and it disrupts.
It gives life, and it washes away illusion.
Perhaps that is the point.
The voice of the Lord is upon the waters — not beside them, not merely observing them, but upon them. Present in the very place where beauty and danger meet.
And that is still where many of us encounter Him now.
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